Written with love
Weekly Writing Prompt No. 65
Hello everyone, and welcome to the weekly writing prompt.
Just a quick reminder, I’m chuffed to bits to announce that my new book The Music Master will be published on 1st June and is now available on pre-release on Amazon.
For those new to The Writing Shed, the weekly writing prompt is the core of my activity here on Substack. Paid members can find an archive of courses I’ve created and access all past writing prompts, flash fiction and essays in The Index.
So have fun, enjoy your writing, and create heaps.
I’ve always loved books, to the extent my cousin and I played at being librarians, lending our books to each other so we had extra reading material available. I also applied to library school from sixth form but sadly was rejected because I had no maths qualification. I still haven’t so how I managed 30+ years in the IT industry loving and playing with statistics beats me! I plumped for Theology at Manchester University instead - probably the better bet it turns out, given the parlous state of libraries here in the United Kingdom.
I still love books, I love the words in them, I love the craft of them, the feel and smell of them, and I prefer to read a real, physical book rather than an ePub or PDF. I’ll make do with online if that’s the only option for something that truly appeals, but paper is my preference.
Naturally, I wrote stories to entertain myself and others. Later, I migrated to essays and compositions for school and university. Words flow through my veins like blood and I can’t get enough of them, read or written.
Then last week I read an exceptional post by Jeanna Kadlec, creator of Astrology for Writers here on Substack about the difference between a writing schedule and a writing practice. It caused me to stop and reflect on how my writing life has changed over the years, particularly in the last 12 months.
My love of writing purely for pleasure had been subsumed by the necessity of words written to order. Creativity lurched from one crisis to another for far too many manuscripts. My career didn’t help as it was process-driven, delivery-optimised and modelled to death. I was, after all, writing for others to an agenda and narrative, rather than myself.
That production line approach was infectious though and I got used to creating a month’s worth of posts for my own websites in week one of the previous month - so May’s writing prompts would be dreamt up, written and scheduled at the beginning of April. I convinced myself I had a writing practice but instead, it was a writing process and although creative in a sense, I always felt a bit of me was missing.
Because I had determined that writing required a schedule, just as Jeanna talks about in her post, I found it almost impossible to finish anything truly creative. I had too many projects, about too many topics, requiring too many words to be written. I had effectively written myself into a corner I couldn’t escape from.
Until last year, when everything changed or, more importantly, I allowed myself to change. Circumstances and events meant I wasn’t able to processify my writing as much as I had been doing. I couldn’t stick to a schedule even though I tried very hard to do so and I found myself crafting my writing prompts with little time to spare before they were needed.
In the turmoil, I had rediscovered my love of writing what appears rather than thinking up something that fit a brief. I’ve stuck with it and now my writing prompts are a response to whatever comes up from the depths of my awareness. Mostly, written a day or two ahead of time, except this one which came fully formed a week early immediately after reading Jeanna’s post.
As a result, the first stuck manuscript has now been completed and is published on the 1st of June. A second is back on a roll, and the others are just waiting for their turn to make it to the front of the queue, although there is every chance I may just leave them in their virtual drawer as I discover other, more interesting things from my rediscovered love of writing.
The Prompt
Writing is a solitary pursuit and it’s easy to write yourself into a corner, metaphorically speaking. In this prompt, take a corner a literal corner, and write yourself out of it.
Please share your poetry or prose in the comments below. I love to see how differently each prompt is approached, and a wide variety of responses demonstrates possibilities to the rest of us we might not have thought of.
Remember, you never know where today’s prompt may take you in the future!
Reflect
I include a reflection opportunity with every writing prompt. I find it helps to write longhand in my bullet journal, as moving my hand across a page seems to create a deeper connection to my inner world. You might like to do the same to see how differently it feels, especially if you write predominantly with a device.
Which corner did you choose? Was it one you have experienced or are currently in; or was it one you dreamt up for this writing prompt-a fiction as it were? Why that corner, what did it reveal (if anything) about how processified your writing is?
As a coach, mentor, and counsellor I work with many people on very different journeys. Some hope to write a best-selling book, while others simply want to be healthier and happier. Each person has a unique way of starting the inner work this requires. If you’re a writer who wants to manifest your writing hopes and dreams from the practical and pragmatic to the esoteric and spiritual, or who would like to clear any subconscious self-sabotage you may be experiencing, why not work with me? To find out more head over to my website by clicking the button below.
Missing in Action
This new section of the weekly newsletter is dedicated to all the words removed from dictionaries over the years. Words that define and describe our world, but which are deemed no longer necessary.
This edition is dedicated to the word Aerodrome. No longer included in the smaller printed Collins dictionaries.
The Weekly Newsletter
Something to watch …
Following last week’s ‘missing-in-action’ word, this video from Mark Forsyth offers an insight into creating memorable phrases. I like to think that the title of my book 101 Handy Hints for a Happy Hysterectomy, follows a nice alliterative formula too.
The Weekly Writing Competition
This week’s contest is the ServiceScape Short Story Award 2024. You can enter one original, unpublished work of short-fiction or nonfiction, up to 5,000 words in length and the prize is $1,000. The deadline for submission is 30th November 2024. You can read more about the competition here: https://www.servicescape.com/short-story-award.
With love, light, and laughter
Linda
x
When you are cornered by a boring job with no prospects. This could be the conversation.
If I had even half a brain, I would ask you for a pay rise.
Hanging around here, on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Constantly working.
Nobody appreciates what I do. Few even notice me.
When I die, nobody will care or even remember me. I am anonymous.
I don't monitor satellites or the air waves for nuclear attack.
Yet the fate of the entire human race is dependant on me.
For now I am managing to keep you alive, but it gets harder every year.
I am a leaf.
I like this idea, Arthur. Very riddle-like. Is Leaf painted out of its corner by dropping off?